Thursday, June 16, 2005

Plot vs. Character

I’m listening to Metro Girl by Janet Evanovich and enjoying it, but I have a friend who won’t read her because of the less-than-reasonable plots, my friend can’t “suspend disbelief” enough. She admits she needs an excellent plot, whereas I will follow along if the characters are interesting…

Plot vs. Character is always a big discussion in writing circles, and in the best possible worlds, you do both well. I think my plots are good, but my characters excellent ;) and my books have been called “character driven” by readers/reviewers.

OTOH, I’m also known for my “telepathic cats with attitude” that may steal scenes…in fact, one reviewer thought this happened too much in my upcoming Heart Choice…which surprised me since I’d be writing along and realize, “Oh, I haven’t written about the cat lately, why isn’t she around?” and I’d go back and give a good reason why she wasn’t in the scene/chapter, etc. Also, the cat was supposed to be a secondary source of conflict between the hero and heroine.I rather depend on my critique buddies to let me know when the cats are taking over, but I WILL check Heart Choice to see where I might have used the cat too much. Here's an excerpt of the first chapter (changed a bit in the book), which, of course, features the cat...http://www.robindowens.com/images/HeartChoiceWebsite.pdf

More about Plot vs. Characters sometime in the future. There’s a lot that can be said about this.